Is Africa’s new smartphone a game changer?

Whether the Onyx phone will actually be the first smartphone manufactured in Africa depends on how you define manufacturing .

A South African start-up will next month begin mass producing a $30 smartphone, which it describes as the first of its kind to be manufactured in Africa.

According to CNN,  Onyx Connect is gearing up to launch a four-inch entry-level smartphone for about $30 that includes front and rear cameras, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM, 1.3GHz quad core processor and runs the latest Android 7 Nougat. While most low-cost smartphones come preloaded with apps that can use up half the storage space, Onyx will give the user a “clean” phone.
“We have a clean Android OS — which is Google certified… that allows the user to decide what they want to load on their phone,” Onyx sales director Andre Van der Merwe tells CNN. This allows Onyx to cater for a number of African languages by providing a suggested listing of country-specific apps.
Onyx says it has also tackled the universal issue of battery life by embedding an app in the phone that allows users to charge the phone a lot faster and give them extra battery life.
“The reason you’re getting a 30 percent faster charging time is because we’re turning off all the applications running in the back while charging,” Van der Merwe explains. “We’re not putting in an extra charge.”

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